On the heels of their third album, Business Casual (9.14.10), nobody is taking Chromeo lightly. The duo of Dave1 and Pee Thug, once slightly mocked or perceived as a gimmick for their resurrection of 80’s funk and soul of the Hall & Oates variety, are now taking last laughs as artists big and small scramble to recreate a sound that only a handful achieve with any authenticity. Chromeo’s authenticity comes from “a lot of attention paid to detail to make sure we’re being faithful to our influences,” says Pee Thug, Chromeo’s master of the talkbox. “There’s definitely a lot of bad stuff out there that comes from trying to be based on the same image, but there’s a lot of really good stuff too.” Continuing on the theme of “good stuff” I talked to Pee Thug about Chromeo’s plan of attack on Business Casual, their upcoming performance at Lollapalooza, as well as his hopes of working with Paul Simon. Get the scoop and bring your button up in the full interview below.
RubyHornet: What’s the draw to playing Lollapalooza these days? When the invite comes in, what is your first thought so to speak?
Pee Thug: Well the last time we played Lollapalooza it was really incredible. The last time was amazing and the people got into it really fast. I can’t wait to see what it’s like this year.
RubyHornet: You’re veterans of Lollapalooza as well as other festivals. What goes into planning that type of set? It seems like it is a mix of die hard Chromeo fans, some casual fans, and maybe people that don’t really know your music. Do you try to please them all?
Pee Thug: We play our regular show, there’s probably a song or two we change around. Basically, like you said, it’s a mix of die-hard fans that are in the front row. Casual fans that know some songs in the middle and people that don’t know who we are just walking around. They discover us and they get into it. They get infected by it. It’s always cool to see new tweets and new facebook comments after every set… It’s great to be able to be in front of new people at festivals. It’s a lot less personal than shows in a room where all our fans are there, but it’s a balance.
RubyHornet: I saw you guys play at Lollapalooza last time you were there. You had a daytime set. This year you’re closing out the Adidas stage. As vets that have gone from a daytime set to now a closing set, do you have any advice for a band that maybe making their first trip the way you were a few years ago?
Pee Thug: Make sure your set is tight and just have fun during the show. People notice that and they enjoy the show more.
RubyHornet: Speaking of your show, you guys just started the Business Casual tour. What’s it been like so far, how’s the new music translating live? I’m wondering if you think of the live aspect while you’re in the studio writing and recording the music.
Pee Thug: It’s hard to think about the live show while you’re creating because you don’t want to be constrained by thinking about it. You have to not care. Whenever we finish a song, then we start to think about, ‘ok, who is going to play what on each song? How do we make this fun to watch?’ We try to play as much as we can and stay busy on stage all the time. But while creating the music we don’t like thinking about the live show.
RubyHornet: I read some old interviews with you guys, and in one of them you said that the first album was made with you guys just messing around and whatever came out, came out. Is that still the process so to speak, or is there more thought when you go into the studio now that you know more people are listening and more may be riding on Chromeo as a whole?
Pee Thug: Well, of course. When we recorded the first album we had really no expectations or ways to think, so we just did whatever. On the second album we wanted to solidify ourselves and make it so that when someone heard a song they could be like, ‘Ok, this is Chromeo. This is a Chromeo track.’ Or, if somebody copied us, you could say, ‘they’re copying Chromeo.’ On the third album you get a challenge where you have to have a big enough evolution but not alienate the present fans that we have. We try to make the music sound better, and we put a lot of time into our chord progression, working out the harmonies, and making it more musical, but you don’t want to lose the fans that really like the funk and our sound. The challenge is keeping our sound and elevating ourselves and our music. You don’t want to stay at the same level your whole life. It’s definitely a challenge and I’ll say that I always think about, ‘is this better than the last one?’ It becomes a little bit of a stress having a semi-successful album.
RubyHornet: You talked about setting your own sound and being able to say, ‘these guys are copying Chromeo.’ It seems like when you guys first came out some people didn’t take you seriously for digging into that 80’s sound so much. It seems nowadays that a lot of artists are doing it. For you guys, are there any feelings of, ‘this is our thing and we have to take care of this to make sure it’s done right and with the proper respect for the music we’ve been influenced by.’ You want to make people know this is your thing?
Pee Thug: Yeah. We try to, like you say, pay respect to the music that we listen to and that we love. There’s a lot of attention paid to detail to make sure we’re being faithful to our influences. There’s definitely a lot of bad stuff out there that comes from trying to be based on the same image, but there’s a lot of really good stuff too. We recognize that right away, and we’ve become stronger with all these people that are piling in the same vibe as us and not necessarily copying, just complimenting our postitivity and we definitely understand. I think it’s good to have some parts of the 80’s represented in different bands.
RubyHornet: I wanted to ask you a personal question. I read another interview back in 2004 and you said “I wish Paul Simon would call me up and say he wants to do a joint with me.” Paul Simon is one of my favorite musicians as well, and I’m just wondering if you’d had any luck with that since 2004?
Pee Thug: No, no luck with that. Our good friends from Vampire Weekend got lucky enough and Paul Simon showed up to one of their shows. They kind of incorporate that whole 80’s African music kind of like Paul Simon did in Graceland. I’m definitely thankful to Vampire Weekend for updating that form. While it’s something we could do, we’re more into the funk side of things.
RubyHornet: In working on Business Casual, at what point did that title come into the fold? Oddly enough, it seems like a great way to describe a vibe I’ve gotten from Chromeo and seems like a really natural fit.
Pee Thug: Dave was making a reservation at a restaurant and the answering machine said ‘reservations blah, blah… the restaurant hours are blah, blah, and the dress code is business casual.’ He just thought it was a hilarious term, “Business Casual.” To even have a dress code you know… It kind of fit us. It kind of fit our whole vibe somehow and we just loved it. We weren’t sure about it for a second and thought about it for a while, then decided that it fit pretty good
